The dark reality of diamonds

The diamond mines of Marange in Zimbabwe serve as the setting for this portrait of a family in turmoil, which focuses on a tenacious 15-year-old boy named Patson Moyo. Patson and his little sister, Grace, adore their father, a man who has dedicated his life to teaching. But it is their new stepmother, known simply as “the Wife,” who compels her husband to leave his home and seek wealth by moving to Marange, where her brother James is involved in mining. In Marange, she claims, there are “diamonds for everyone.”

Whodunit Column by Bruce Tierney

With an impressive eight books to his credit in as many years, Michael Koryta once again wows readers with The Prophet, a tale of football and murder in a small Midwestern town. Brothers Kent and Adam Austin have followed wildly disparate paths since the abduction and murder of their beloved sister many years before. Adam has become a bail bondsman, haunting the fringes of the criminal element...

Whodunit Column by Bruce Tierney

It is always a good month for mystery readers if there is a new Michael Connelly book at hand—doubly so if it happens to feature world-weary L.A. cop Harry Bosch. In Connelly’s latest, The Drop, Bosch commands the LAPD cold case unit, serving out his final three years before forced retirement. Cases scarcely get any colder—or any stranger—than his current one: Newly...

Whodunit Column by Bruce Tierney

We have another cross-global collection this month, with mysteries from the U.S., Denmark, Canada and even Botswana! First up is Death of the Mantis, number three in the series featuring portly policeman David “Kubu” Bengu. Kubu’s debut adventure, A Carrion Death, earned author Michael Stanley (a pen name for two authors, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) the nod as our Top...

Tough times for the Lincoln Lawyer

The lousy economy of recent years, like lousy economic times of any era, has the potential to give rise to engaging, compelling works of fiction. Thus, the mortgage crisis and the Great Recession are inspirations for Michael Connelly’s The Fifth Witness.Times are so bad that even Connelly’s attorney Mickey Haller not only has to work out of his car for a while, but has to moonlight,...

Whodunit Column by Bruce Tierney

Michael Connelly's latest addition to his best-selling Harry Bosch series, The Closers, finds the somewhat shopworn detective with a new lease on life, albeit not an idyllic one. After a couple of years of trying his hand at private investigation, LAPD detective Bosch is back on the force, this time with the mission of reopening and solving cases which have been on the back burner for decades....

Hard-bitten Bosch tells all

The best fictional detectives are mysteries unto themselves: hard-bitten, world-weary, troubled souls who keep the dark, uncomfortable corners of their past clearly marked off-limits by yellow police tape.So it comes as a surprise when the moodiest of the lot, L.A. Homicide Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch, suddenly opens up as never...